My Medium’s Mental Monuments
I have 50 whole followers! While this may not be too impressive, it feels so to me… why?
About a month ago I began Medium — this may not be immediately apparent since I deleted my first article due to not being to my standards, but it’s now to the day!
I’ve had the temptation to get myself a decent cup of coffee to celebrate the occasion, however before I bought the cappuccino, I thought about why I decided to buy it: I bought it for the fact that 50 people had now read my work when a month ago no one cared about my opinions except for my sparse friends.
I then thought further, as I sometimes do to thoughts that don’t seem quite true, about why I felt it was necessary to excuse myself buying a cappuccino with this achievement, which wasn’t lofty at the end of the day. Plenty of people had reached this before, so why?
Validation
While I’ve written about it before, the idea of someone only writing to know that people have read them is a dominant one in my writing. If I was content to do so, I could simply live in my head and endlessly rewrite articles that would never be said or written. For the most part, I’m sure that’s what many of the populace actually do.
However, I am not content with simply doing this — as I am sure most people on Medium aren’t satisfied with keeping their voices to themselves.
The right to voice opinions is one that I could not imagine living well without.
I format my articles mainly so that they could be read by anybody who I mentally decide to classify as the Reader, who I then use as a jumping-off point to make my argument or give my opinion on anything properly — an explanation, for me, is the best format for my productivity. I produce more when I write as though I am writing for one person instead of potentially one thousand.
Of course, this does open up an issue with motivation: the ability to write, even if no one is willing to glance at it.
When I didn’t write for friends, I practically never wrote, except if absolutely necessary, when I was told that I excelled and should practice my skill. This is not to say that I simply wanted praise, but rather that I wanted someone to recognize the opinions I put into every post.
This is why I was so ecstatic when I hit 50 followers on this platform yesterday — because I know now that people care, that people will read what I write, and it is a great motivation, even if it may not seem so as I don’t grind out articles daily.
I edit articles by that mentally marinating in the idea long enough for my to have a few “key statements” about them — statements I feel would resonate with a potential reader, and then I sit down sometime thereafter and write it out in 1 or 2-hour-long sessions.
While this may not seem a productively quick style of writing in the age of instant information, it’s ultimately how I write, and I think that the fact 50 people wish to follow along with me means I’m not truly alone in enjoying this style of writing.
Monument
Fifty people is about two classrooms or a congregation’s worth of people whenever I think about the number — and both are things that I do wish to eventually hold. I go to congregation and I wish that I could share my viewpoints on the Bible, different though it may be; and I simply wished I could explain to the class how I understood the subject when I was in school.
Fifty people is a monument to the fact that I’ve put in soul into my pieces.
Fifty people is a monument to the fact that people listen to what I want to say when I say it in an “untainted” manner — by having people explore it outside of those who know me.
And those monuments, I am proud of.
Hello! If you’ve just found this article, I’m Wynth, and I focus mainly on writing about (occasionally argumentative) opinions, with occasional fiction!
